


graceless

by jaekyu



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Age Difference, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Coming Out, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Masturbation, Mentions of Cancer, Minor Character Death, Oral Sex, Recreational Drug Use, Religious Content, Religious Guilt, Slow Burn, Underage Drinking, compulsory heterosexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-30 00:23:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11452140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaekyu/pseuds/jaekyu
Summary: I'm trying, but I'm graceless. Hyungwon's grandmother always told him he was exactly like his mother. That he had the devil in him. Hyungwon doesn't believe in the devil. Hyungwon doesn't even believe in God. Hyunwoo will be the only evidence he will ever find that maybe he's wrong.God loves everybody, don't remind me.





	graceless

**Author's Note:**

> **some important warnings** : hyungwon's mother dies of a terminal illness, it's cancer. this fic is heavy on the underage drinking. the recreational drug use is mostly for weed but there are two instances where it's cocaine. there is also a vaguely described scene of rough sex and though it _is_ consensual, it does end up being traumatic for the person involved. the age difference tag is for both that scene and the main pairing. which, i'll let you know up front, is a seven year difference. hyungwon is, however, twenty years old which makes him an adult and a good few years above the age of consent. shownu is twenty-seven. i specify this because i know this might be less of an issue for certain people compared to other kinds of age differences. but in general, guys, if any of these things i listed make you uncomfortable, feel free to skip this one or tread carefully. i'm not trying to upset anybody.
> 
> i guess i should also mention hyungwon's grandmother is a religious fundamentalist and a piece of shit because of it. i grew up catholic and, though i'm no longer religious, i know not everyone's like this. i respect people's beliefs as long they don't target marginalized groups, etc, etc. 
> 
> on some lighter notes, this will be the longest thing i've ever published. and it's for a rare pair nobody writes for and maybe nobody reads for either? such is my life. i also edited this myself and it's 13k, so i hope you'll forgive any errors i missed.
> 
> okay, now that that's out of the way: hope y'all enjoy.

 

 

 

 

 

I even loved a few times in my disgusting human way

(LOUISE GLUCK)

 

at fifteen you had the radiance of early morning, at twenty you will begin to have the melancholy brilliance of the moon.

(THIS SIDE OF PARADISE, F. Scott Fitzgerald)

 

 

 

 

 

Hyungwon’s grandmother, the one on his mother’s side, his mother’s own mother, his grandfather on that side long dead, she was one of those rosary clutching, God-fearing types. Hyungwon never understood that.

When Hyungwon was younger, before his mother moved herself and Hyungwon away, he’d sit at his grandmother’s kitchen table, cross hung on the wall above his head like a guillotine. She would feed him tasteless soup with dry crackers and say to him, “you’re so much like your mother.”

It wasn’t a compliment, nor an observation. She always said it with this angry edge to her voice, eyes narrowed, mouth frowned into a straight line.

“You’re exactly like her,” she would say and it would sound like an accusation. Bony fingers pointed at Hyungwon turned into shards of glass. Hyungwon’s grandmother would take in the facial structure he shared with his mother, the same big, plush lips, eye shape, curve and slope of a nose and her words would sound like a warning.

“You’re exactly like your mother.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hyungwon was born when his mother was barely seventeen, father a man he would never meet. A dead grandfather, a grandmother who was never evil, in the literal sense, but she was one of those women who believed in God and the Devil and that meant she had certain ideas. Ideas Hyungwon and his mother did not fit into.

Hyungwon, inevitably, became the only reliable thing his mother ever had.

Hyungwon is a year and a semester into his philosophy degree when he drops out to watch his mother waste away. It is 1992, Hyungwon has just turned twenty years old, and his mother is dying of lung cancer.

“I told you one day all those cigarettes would catch up to you,” Hyungwon tells her and the words sound sadder than he meant it. Everything seems sadder than he meant it. Maybe life is just sadder than we all mean it to be.

“Are you about to give your mother a lecture on her deathbed?” She replies, good spirited despite the way her voice sounds like she’s swallowed hot coals. Despite the way the doctor told her _four months, five if you get lucky_. It aches the deepest part of Hyungwon’s heart.

Hyungwon has always been all his mother had. He’ll be all his mother has until the bitter end, and then he will be alone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Did you love my dad?” Hyungwon had asked his mother once.

He was much younger. Back then the image of his father he had in his head was much more flattering. Hyungwon thought of him as handsome, muscular, a man who would have taught him things like how to shave and mow the lawn and would have bought his mother flowers on her birthday. He would have done all the things the dads did on the television and in the movies, except he would be better, because he would be Hyungwon’s.

His mother had smiled at him. She had been been mending a hole Hyungwon had ripped into the elbow of one of his sweaters. “I did,” she had lied and pushed the needle and thread through a stitch in the fabric.

(Hyungwon will be sixteen when he asks the question again, a little different this time.

“You never loved him, did you?” He’ll say, and that flattering image of his father will have been forgotten. He is now and will always be from now on a shadowy, hunched figure who would never care about Hyungwon enough to consider him worth any time. He will be mean, angry and a coward.

His mother will not smile this time. “No,” she’ll say, with nothing to busy her hands.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before she dies, Hyungwon’s mother tells him, “your Grandmother wants you to live with her for the summer, before you go back to school.” There is a finality to the statement. His mother knows she’ll be dead by then.

Hyungwon lifts his eyes from the book he’s reading at his mother’s bedside. “Does she?”

“Don’t say it like that,” she chastises her son. Hyungwon did not think his voice betrayed him, but his mother has always read him like an open book. “She always loved you.”

“She sends me a birthday card with twenty dollars in it once a year and then never speaks to me again,”

“I know, sweetheart,” Hyungwon’s mother sighs. She reaches for his hand and Hyungwon lets her take it. She is all at once burning hot and ice cold. “That’s my fault, I’m sorry. It’s never too late to fix things.”

They are silent for a long while, before Hyungwon says, “do you hate her?”

“No,” his mother replies, smiling sadly. The words are unbelievably, utterly truthful. “Sometimes I wish I could.”

That’s the truth too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hyungwon’s mother only ever introduced one man to Hyungwon. He was not Hyungwon’s father.

He was older than her, late forties compared to his mother’s mid-thirties. But he looked young for his age, he was built large in the chest and shoulders and his face was relatively free of wear. He wore his age exclusively in his hair and beard, which were a matching shade of salt and pepper.

“He has a son around your age,” his mother had said, hand poised over the part of her rib cage that held her heart. In her eyes Hyungwon could almost see the reflection of all the ways she was imagining this would change their lives.

Hyungwon was sixteen and Hoseok, his mother’s boyfriends son, had been eighteen. Hoseok looked like his father, or maybe Hyungwon thought so because he had never met Hoseok’s mother. She was still alive, run off somewhere with a man she met five years earlier.

That sounds romantic, Hyungwon wanted to say when Hoseok told him, but he knew he shouldn’t.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If Hyungwon wouldn’t have dropped out of school, he would have gone on exchange in Spain for his third year.

He feels guilty imagining what could have been when he’s awake with his mother because the truth is under these circumstances there’s nowhere else he’d rather be. There will be more time to go places later. After.

Hyungwon only ever thinks of Spain in his dreams, in that world half between awake and asleep.

He imagines classic architecture, his mouth bright red from wine, the soft button-downs he would wear with khaki shorts and polished Chelsea boots. He imagines learning Spanish, picking up words from strangers, asking for lessons from bartenders. He wonders if the heat in Spain is the wet humid kind or the dry desert kind. He wonders what the food would have tasted like. Soft meats falling off of their bones, fresh fruits, the richest pasta sauces and smoothest alcohol.

There would be girls there, and boys too, and the latest time of night is when Hyungwon imagines them: accented english, dark eyes and soft thighs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seven months after Hyungwon meets his mother’s boyfriend, he’s invited over for dinner. Hoseok disappears halfway through, excusing himself and scrapping the rest of his steak and potatoes into the trash. Hyungwon offers to do the dishes. His mother follows her boyfriend up the stairs.

Around ten-thirty at night there is a shuffle from downstairs. Hyungwon assumes it’s Hoseok, who will maybe want to watch a bit of TV while Hyungwon waits for his mom to want to go home.

Hyungwon descends the stairs, confirms it is Hoseok making all the noise down there. But he’s not alone. When Hyungwon registers a softer, curvier shadow in the room - he stops, startled.

It’s a girl. She slides like slow-moving lava into Hoseok’s lap, where he fits his open palms against her ass. They kiss, heated and quiet save for the quick breaths they try and steal while they briefly part.

Hoseok had never told him he had a girlfriend. Hyungwon hadn’t thought -

Hoseok spots him, eyes open and mouth still against this girl, fingers pressed into her hips and ass. He settles his eyes right on Hyungwon, and then the girl dips her head to lick a stripe up Hoseok’s neck.

Hyungwon leaves.

(Later, after he walks home without his mother, Hyungwon peels off all his clothes and steps into the shower.

He feels dirty. He thinks of Hoseok, the slope of his jaw into his neck, the shape of his shoulders, the way they curve into parts of Hoseok that Hyungwon has never seen, his big hands -

Hyungwon feels dirty. He turns the water as hot as it will go. He scrubs at his skin until it’s bright pink, dry and raw. He scrubs and he scrubs, he’s still thinking of Hoseok’s hands.

And he feels dirty.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hyungwon’s mother and Hoseok’s father don’t work out. They break up just shy of dating for a year.

Hyungwon’s mother cries, not much, but she cries. She stops wearing the necklace he bought her but she keeps it in her jewelry box. She tells Hyungwon if he wants to stay friends with Hoseok he can. Hyungwon doesn’t have the heart to tell her they never really were friends to begin with.

Hyungwon feels bad for not really caring that his mother's boyfriend left her. But he already had one father disappoint him - he didn’t need another.

(He sends a card after she dies. He offers Hyungwon anything he needs, but Hyungwon knows it’s more an empty common courtesy than an actual offer. Hoseok’s name is signed on the card, but it’s not his handwriting, so his father must have put it there for him.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hyungwon’s mother dies, the same way everything does. The same way he will.

He misses her before she’s even gone. The day before she passes there is a feeling in Hyungwon’s stomach and throat, like he’s swallowed a rock. It weighs heavy and everything feels tight around it. It makes him want to sit with his mother all day, running his fingers over the skin of her palm and speaking to her quietly about nothing, something, everything.

Later, he’ll think maybe that was the universe trying to tell him something. The universe making him miss his mother, on the last day it could be sedated. Preparation for the rest of a life spent always missing her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hyungwon’s grandmother does not come to her own daughter’s funeral.

She sends a bouquet of flowers, a non-specific card attached, and Hyungwon lets the flowers wilt and die on his mother’s dining room table.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hyungwon’s mother made all the necessary arrangements to sell her house before she died.

(“I can’t give you this place, baby,” she had told him. “There’s so much debt buried in this place. Better to sell it and not have you worry about it. You don’t need a house, not yet. You’ll be okay, right? You’ll be okay if I sell this place?”

“I’ll be okay, mom,” Hyungwon had replied. He didn’t want the house. A house full of ghosts. No one wants a house full of ghosts. He would have sold it anyway, or maybe not. Maybe the guilt of selling his mother’s home would have been too much.

Hyungwon’s glad she made the decision for him.

“You can have whatever money is leftover from it, of course,” she breathed. By this point every word she spoke made her out of breath. “Of course, sweetie, all the extra money is yours.”

“I’ll be okay, mom,” Hyungwon had repeated.)

The realtor shows up two weeks after Hyungwon’s mother dies, clutching a bouquet of flowers, as if Hyungwon needs anymore of those, as if he’s going to have anywhere to put those, and then asks Hyungwon if he can be out in a week.

Hyungwon agrees, already having half packed up all his mother’s belongings and barely having any of his own things to shove into an overnight bag before he leaves. The realtor smiles - the tightest, most careful smile Hyungwon has ever seen - and leaves Hyungwon his card if he needs anything.

A week later he hands the same realtor his set of keys and says his goodbye to his mother’s house and all of it’s ghosts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hyungwon’s mother much preferred the countryside. That’s where they lived, when Hyungwon’s mother had had enough of her own mother, constantly casting a shadow from over her shoulder, breathing down her neck, the two of them moved away from the city and into the country. The country had it’s charm, the old dirt road, large sprawling fields, pollen infested kind of charm. It was less expensive to live there so his mother bought a bigger house. Hyungwon had his own room and a room for all the toys he outgrew not long after they moved. His mother was going to make that room into an office but - of course, obviously, that never came to fruition. His grandmother almost never visited after they moved, because she liked the city, her tiny apartment in the city, the big, big church she went to in the city.

The last time she visited, Hyungwon remembers, was when his mother first got sick. Hyungwon was told to stay in his room until it was time to say goodbye.

All this to say: the train ride to Hyungwon’s grandmothers takes three and a half hours. Hyungwon spends it reading _This Side of Paradise_ by F. Scott Fitzgerald. He’s not liking it much.

The book itself is an old weathered copy Hyungwon found in the bin of a used bookstore, paperback fraying at the edges and spine thoroughly worn. Hyungwon likes used books. That’s maybe the whole reason he wants to finish this one. There’s two stories in the pages of any book previously owned: the one the author is telling and the one the person who had the book before you read. You can’t always tell what’s happening in the latter - but it charges the book with a kind of electricity that can not be duplicated.

Aside from the obvious wear, there is one passage, marked by a small pen mark in the margin. Hyungwon reads it over and over again.

_Beauty and love pass, I know. Oh, there's sadness, too. I suppose all great happiness is a little sad. Beauty means the scent of roses and then the death of roses._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first thing Hyungwon’s grandmother does after she greets him at her front door and lets him in is pour him a glass of whiskey. When she slides it across the table towards him, Hyungwon cocks an eyebrow.

“Drink it,” she says, roll of her eyes, folding her hands together in her lap. Hyungwon takes a swig; it burns all the way down into his stomach. “It’s not a trick. If losing both your parents doesn’t make you an adult, I don’t know what will.”

Hyungwon takes another drink. His glass is almost empty. “Is this supposed to make me feel better?”

His grandmother shakes her head. “Don’t start relying on alcohol for happiness, boy,”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hyungwon wonders if his father outlived his mother.

Even if he is still alive, Hyungwon has no desire to find the man, not anymore. Hyungwon would have low expectations if he ever did, and he’s sure the man would manage to disappoint him anyway. When he was younger and he and his mother used to fight (which never happened often and always left Hyungwon feeling awful and guilty afterwards) - and this was when he was much, much younger - when they would fight Hyungwon would imagine his father coming to take him away from his mother. Not forever, never forever, but for the day. For the weekend. He would show up, pick Hyungwon up into strong arms. They’d go get ice cream, go see a movie, go to the beach if it was warm enough. Hyungwon would shut his eyes so tight he saw stars until those stars became the shadow of a man he never met and never knew quite how to picture. And then they’d go on adventures - not important, far away, hard adventures. Easy adventures that felt like adventures all the same. Driving down roads you can’t recognize at that age is enough of an adventure.

But, of course, none of those things ever happened. Hyungwon’s father never showed up to take him anywhere. After a while Hyungwon stopped wishing for it, knowing the place for him was with his mother. And then his mother left without him anyway.

Hyungwon would think about that more, about how both of his parents ended up leaving him, but he would never let himself compare his mother and father. Not that way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hyungwon learns from a young age the divide between the person everyone thinks you are and the person you really are can be wide like a canyon.

Case and point: his grandmother.

For all the fire and brimstone, she has her vices like anyone else. She lives in a middle-class apartment complex, with a pool and a recreation center. She likes expensive jewelry, pretending she knows anything about art, and champagne with her orange juice at brunch after Sunday morning church. She lies, sometimes she cheats at cards, she’s an awful gossip.

Persuade her enough and she’ll put her rosary in her pocket and pretend it’s not there.

Hyungwon has been living with her all of one week and he’s already bored. His grandmother isn’t much of a conversationalist.

“I’m thinking of buying another necklace like this,” she says, handing said necklace to Hyungwon. She’s sorting through her jewelry, looking for things to donate to her church. Hyungwon is disinterestedly finding pairs of earrings in a messy jar full of them, drinking a glass of lemon water.

The locket Hyungwon’s grandmother hands him is a heavy, solid gold locket, with a tiny diamond set just to the right, off-centre, in the top corner. Hyungwon opens it and finds no photo inside. “It was very expensive, but so worth it.”

“Greed’s a sin,” Hyungwon says, off-handed but knowing perfectly well the kind of reaction he’ll get from his grandmother. He places the necklace in a heap on the dining room table. He spots two matching pearl earrings, plucks them out of the pile.

His grandmother glares daggers. Her hands close around the gold of her expensive locket. She smooths the length of chain against her tablecloth. “Don’t talk to me about sin,” she grits, “without it you wouldn’t even be here.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hyungwon’s grandmother's apartment complex is mostly filled widows and widowers, people her own age, so nothing much ever happens.

Luckily, Hyungwon makes friends with the pool boy, Jooheon, and he introduces Hyungwon to his own friends, Minhyuk and Kihyun, and the three of them invite Hyungwon to parties on the other side of town.

They’re at the boat docks tonight; a whole group of them on the beach, fire made with scavenged sticks and maybe too much gasoline. Minhyuk drove them, because they took his father’s car, and Kihyun sat in the passenger seat and smoked two cigarettes before they even got here.

He always offers Hyungwon one and Hyungwon always says no. He’s thankful Kihyun doesn’t ask why.

Jooheon brings a bottle of cinnamon whiskey that they split, each of them taking swigs from the bottle itself. It makes the mouth of the bottle warm and wet. Hyungwon uses his tongue to catch a drop on the lip of it before he takes another sip.

Hyungwon doesn’t know anyone at this party, so he sits with his legs up to chest, arms around them, in front of the fire with his feet tucked into the cool sand. He wonders if his friends are really his friends when they know nothing about him. He wonders how much friendships based on proximity can really benefit anyone. Hyungwon wants to tell them things, maybe, but he’s not sure where to start. What’s worth sharing and what would just make it weird.

My dad left before I was born and I never met him. My grandma hates me because she’s a religious fundamentalist. My mom died of cancer, a handful of weeks ago, and I haven’t cried about it yet. I’m gay.

No one wants to hear those things. Anything else just doesn’t seem worth sharing.

An hour and half before Minhyuk collects the three of them to leave, a girl shows up and sits besides Hyungwon. They talk for a bit. She puts her hands all over him like she’s on fire and he’s a fountain of water.

They kiss for a bit. The girl - she’s pretty, Hyungwon realizes he should have thought that sooner, that someone more normal would have looked at her and thought that immediately, a pretty girl with long hair and slim fingers and a tiny mouth - the girl takes him behind a boat shed and they kiss some more. He puts his hand under her skirt, shifts her thighs apart, presses his fingers against her clit. He stops paying attention after that. Stops paying attention until she circles her fingers around his wrist and pulls his hand away, offers to take care of him in return.

“I’m okay,” Hyungwon rushes, “I’m going to puke - sorry, not because of you, that sounded like shit. Fuck. Sorry, I drank a lot of Fireball. I should go.”

On the way home Jooheon puts his head in Hyungwon’s lap in the backseat, sleeping like a rock. Kihyun smokes two more cigarettes.

“I didn’t know you liked girls,” Minhyuk says, very careful, very slow, eyes darting to Hyungwon in the rear view mirror.

Hyungwon pushes Jooheon’s hair, soaked with sweat, behind his ears. “I don’t.”

No one says anything after that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Where did you go last night?” Hyungwon’s grandmother asks him.

Hyungwon is nursing a hangover, and the heat is really starting to get him. It’s 10AM and his grandmother hasn’t opened any windows. Hyungwon immediately goes for the one above the sink. “Nowhere. Why.”

His grandmother butters her toast, mouth pursed, watching Hyungwon open her window. She’s already dressed and wearing jewelry: two rings on her left hand, one on her right. Diamond earrings that match her necklace. “You left the house at midnight to go nowhere? You came back at three in the morning from nowhere?”

Hyungwon opens a cupboard, searching. “I thought I was an adult now? Do adults have a curfew?”

His grandmother hums in the back of her throat. It’s her saying _careful_ , without using words. “You’re an adult,” she says instead, “you can still tell me what you’re doing.”

“Nothing bad, grandma,” Hyungwon replies, “don’t worry.”

The way she looks at him tells Hyungwon she won’t listen to him. “You’d think your mother would have taught you some responsibility. At least for yourself.”

Hyungwon almost bites back, _guess she was too busy dying,_ but he manages to keep the ugly lump of that sentence in his throat. He changes the subject. “There’s no more peanut butter.”

His grandmother waves him off, seemingly done with him. “Put it on the list.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hyungwon meets Son Hyunwoo.

He doesn’t know it yet, but it’s the most important thing that will happen to him all summer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hyungwon’s waiting for Kihyun to pick him up for a party. He’s wearing ripped jeans, a loose fitted olive green t-shirt, he’s fixed his hair. His grandmother is in the bath, reading a book, humming to herself loud enough that Hyungwon can hear it through the bathroom door.

Someone knocks on the door and Hyungwon expects Kihyun - who else would it be? But it’s not Kihyun. It’s someone much taller, much broader, arms full of groceries bags.

“Oh,” is all Hyungwon manages to say, stunned into silence. The guy in the doorway looks awkward. “Sorry, who are you?”

“My name’s Hyunwoo,” he says. He looks older than Hyungwon - mostly around his eyes - maybe significantly so, but there’s no way he’s older than thirty. His shirt is plain white and his jeans have dirt on them. “I usually - she’s your grandmother, right? - I usually help her pick up her groceries.”

“Oh,” Hyungwon repeats lamely. “Um, come in, I guess?” Hyungwon doesn’t know what to do or say. He watches Hyunwoo move with practiced expertise through his grandmother’s apartment. He lays out the dozen grocery bags on the dining room table, tacks the notepad Hyungwon’s grandmother uses to write her grocery list back on the fridge. Stops, looks at Hyungwon, adjusts the hem of his t-shirt.

“Is that it?” Hyungwon asks.

“Yeah,” Hyunwoo scratches the back of his neck, “if you need anything - your grandmother too - if you guys need anything I live next door, okay?”

When Hyunwoo leaves he brushes past Kihyun at Hyungwon’s door. Later, in the car, Hyungwon nursing a bottle of gin hidden in a brown paper bag, Kihyun asks, “who was that?” Like Hyunwoo should be someone more important or interesting to Hyungwon then he is.

Hyungwon shrugs. “Helps my grandmother with her groceries or something,” he tilts his head back with the bottle to his lips, lets two whole gulps slip uninhibited down his throat, “who cares?”

Kihyun raises an eyebrow. But he doesn’t say anything, just gestures for Hyungwon to hand him his lighter out of the glove compartment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

College for Hyungwon was rarely ever about the actual academia. He was a philosophy major, for christ's sake.

He never did bad in school; he handed in his papers on time, he did his class readings, he thought critically and read critically and analyzed every puff piece his professors put in front of him. He took notes. He studied.

But that’s never what college was about. It was more about the warm alcohol, the shitty weed, the occasional appearance of harder things. It was about talking politics with half-formed opinions, mostly just repeating things you’d heard other people say and you thought were the right answers. It was about sex, being away from home for the first time. Self-discovery, that’s what it was about, there was a lot of pretentious kids at Hyungwon's school that described it like that.

Hyungwon went to hall parties and put his hands all over girls, and later boys, and drank mixed drinks from glasses he stole from other people’s hands, no matter how much of a bad idea that was. By the time his first year was almost over, though, Hyungwon was already bored of all that. He was already dreaming of Spain and all the different, new bad ideas he could have there.

Maybe that’s what college had really been about: bad ideas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summer arrives like the tide. Hyungwon is pale and thin and bored. He changes into his swim trunks, a red faded to pink from years of wear. If he would have gone to Spain, he thinks he might have bought new ones. But he never went to Spain.

In the mirror, he’s nothing but a mess of hair that he needs to cut, sinewy muscle, and too bright veins underneath the thin skin of his wrists. It’s obvious he’s been inside all Spring. Whatever. He throws on a t-shirt before he leaves.

Hyungwon stretches out in one of the lounge chairs set up around the pool. It groans under him, old and barely up kept, and the plastic squeaks against his bare skin after he pulls off his shirt and tries to settle into it. He’s brought _This Side of Paradise_ with him. He finished it already and he hated it but he’s got no other books with him.

He’s read two whole pages before something catches his eye.

It’s Hyunwoo, bent down and fixing the back gate of the pool, the one’s that hasn’t closed properly since Hyungwon arrived, the one that bangs annoyingly in any kind of storm. He’s folded at the knees, toolbox to his left. He’s not wearing a shirt and Hyungwon - he can’t help it - his eyes fall on that big and broad chest. It’s flat but sculpted, smooth and distinctly male. Coloured honey from the sun, even if it’s barely summer.

All the warmth from the sun seems to settle into Hyungwon’s gut. The rest of him gets goosebumps.

Hyunwoo catches him looking. Hyungwon’s thankful he’s far enough anyway Hyunwoo can’t tell _where_ he’s caught Hyungwon looking. Hyungwon waves, nonchalant. Hyunwoo offers a small one back.

They sit in silence for a long while. Hyungwon pretends to read but he watches Hyunwoo. His back and the sweat there reflect the light of the sun. Hyungwon thinks Hyunwoo will finish fixing the gate soon, and then he’ll leave, and if he’s going to do something he has to -

Hyungwon drops his book onto his discarded shirt. He doesn’t bother keeping his place.

Before he can think about it too much, he dives smoothly into the water, leaving a small splash and waves in his wake. The pool is cold and not very deep or long. Hyungwon swims all the way to the other side without taking a breath. He emerges on the edge of the pool closest to Hyunwoo, the shallow end, where when he stands the water comes up to his waist. The rest of him is exposed: bare chest dripping water, hair stuck to his forehead with water, face flushed to match his chest from holding his breath.

Hyungwon doesn’t look at Hyunwoo, he throws his head back to get his hair out of his eyes and pretends that takes him longer than it does, stands there for longer than he needs. Waits until he feels the weight of a gaze on him.

Then he straightens his neck, meets Hyunwoo’s eyes, and smiles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kihyun’s family is fucking loaded. Hyungwon sits with him, Minhyuk and Jooheon, in Kihyun’s parents huge basement in their huge house, smoking weed and drinking expensive red wine straight from the bottle. Wine always gets Hyungwon a weird kind of drunk, not a buzzing like a beehive kind of drunk, more a heavy-lidded, loose-mouthed kind of drunk.

Kihyun’s using matches to light his cigarette; two of them won’t take a flame before he finally manages a spark to ignite the third one. “That guy that was at your house the other day,” he says to Hyungwon, mouth exhaling smoke as he speaks, “you see him again?”

“Why do you care?” Hyungwon asks. He takes the joint away from Jooheon, who always tries to hog it long enough for a second drag. “He was just a guy, my grandma’s neighbour.”

“He was good looking, though,” Kihyun quirks an eyebrow, up then back down, “right? You thought so?”

Hyungwon exhales, after the smoke from the joint has licked away at his lungs, and when he speaks his voice is tight with it. “We’re not talking about this.”

Jooheon and Minhyuk both laugh. Kihyun looks like a cat that’s just eaten a bird, feathers caught in his teeth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For a woman who never found her own happiness, somehow, Hyungwon’s mother never stopped believing in love.

“Oh, baby,” she used to coo at Hyungwon, pushing his hair away from his forehead, cradling his face with her other hand. “You’re going to find someone who loves you so much one day, baby, so much. But never more than me, right? I’ll always love you the most. Will you always love me the most?”

“Of course, mommy,” Hyungwon would always say. It had been so many years since she had asked Hyungwon that question when she died. Maybe she thought he had outgrown it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So maybe Hyungwon’s childhood had been less than ideal. It didn’t matter. He had never needed more. He had his mother, the best mother he could have had, he could never have imagined a better one, and now - now that just made everything worse.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“You met the boy who lives next door?” Hyungwon’s grandmother asks him. This is a day when Hyunwoo has dropped off his grandmother’s groceries while Hyungwon was napping, a naps that the sun makes you need.

“Yeah,” Hyungwon says. He’s staring intently at the happy family of four eating dinner on the label of a soup can. “Hyunwoo, right?”

“Yes, that’s him,” his grandmother says, “though, I suppose he’s not much of a boy. I must be getting old.” Hyungwon scoffs. “I think he would do you good if you got to know him. He’s very nice. A good influence.”

Hyungwon sets down the soup can. He thinks about all the ways he’d like to get to know Hyunwoo and imagines the expression his grandmother would have if he told her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hyungwon lays awake in his grandmother’s guest bed, late, late night, dark sky, and thinks about Hyunwoo.

There’s that expanse of his back - the road from shoulder blade to shoulder blade - the way it shifts under his t-shirt, when he’s not wearing one the way his bones and muscles shift under his skin. Hyungwon imagines how long it would take to travel with his fingers. Wonders how long it would take to travel with his mouth.

There’s his arms, sculpted carefully, slowly by whoever it is his grandma believes does those things. His face - a brow that moves into cheekbones that slopes into a jaw, the tight set of his mouth with it’s swell of a bottom lip.

Hyungwon breathes out, flips onto his stomach, buries his face into his pillow and pushes a hand into his pajama bottoms. It feels like rebellion - his grandmother across the hall, Hyunwoo’s skin and mouth, Hyunwoo’s _hands_ on his mind, his own hand around his cock. God, he wants to put his own mouth on Hyunwoo’s cock. His mouth waters. He bites into his pillow, leaves a dark patch of spit behind.

He knows it’s impossible, it’s late and the door is locked and Hyungwon has closed his blinds, but Hyungwon wishes Hyunwoo would catch him. Back arching, hand that's not the one around his cock clutching his bed sheet, toes curling. Hyunwoo could walk right in and it wouldn’t make Hyungwon stop. He doesn’t think he could. He thinks he’d come right then. He hopes Hyunwoo would stay.

Hyungwon sticks three knuckles into his mouth, bites down and groans around them, and comes. Alone. Just him in the darkness of his room.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first time Hyungwon lets a boy put his hands on him, he’s three months into his freshman year of college and has just done three lines of cocaine.

He’s at a party, they’re playing slow 70’s R&B and Hyungwon never was one for drugs, never thought he would be, but all the variables just seemed to line up. He was barely into college, away from home for the first time, grew up the perfect storm for a problem child.

So this guy offered Hyungwon some coke and then wanted to suck him off. So Hyungwon let him.

The guy’s mouth was too small to swallow Hyungwon down and his hands were too dry where he tried to jerk Hyungwon’s dick off to make up for it. It didn’t matter. No one had ever properly touched Hyungwon, not with this intent, and he was fucking high out of his mind, and so it was the best thing he could have ever asked for.

Hyungwon watched the guys spine while he moved up and down on his dick. He wanted to play concerto and symphonies on it, prettier than any stolen ivory anyone had ever made a piano out of. Every knob and the way they curved, strained through the thin fabric of his t-shirt.

After he comes his partner spits Hyungwon’s spunk into the sink, kisses him and goes back to the party. Hyungwon breathes. He half expects his brain to flick like a switch: congratulations, fuck, would you look at that? But it doesn’t. Not in anyway that feels satisfying.

Hyungwon curls his hands around the sink, cool porcelain against his shaking, clammy hands. He looks at himself in the mirror, wide, red mouth and wide, glazed eyes. Wide, empty heart. Hair a mess. He thinks, you’ve known this, you’ve known your whole life.

Hyungwon drops his gaze into the sink. White against white, he can still see his come mixed with the boys spit creep down the basin and closer to the drain.

It makes the whole sink look dirty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next time Hyungwon sees Hyunwoo, he’s in the laundry room of the apartment complex, way in the basement, sitting on the dryer while he waits for it to finish.

They don’t say anything at first. Nod at each other in acknowledgement, then Hyungwon watches Hyunwoo fill a washing machine until his laundry basket is empty.

“Do you live alone?” Hyungwon decides to ask. He folds his legs together at the ankle, leaning back on his palms. “Sorry. Not to be rude, or anything.”

“It’s okay,” Hyunwoo says, “yeah, I live alone.”

Hyungwon’s eyes trace the way Hyunwoo’s bicep dips into the pit of his elbow. Then he says, “how old are you?”

“Twenty-seven,” Hyunwoo sighs, as if he was much older.

“That’s not that old,” Hyungwon smiles.

“Thanks,” Hyunwoo doesn’t sound convinced. He tilts his head, then, “how old are you?”

“Twenty,” Hyungwon replies, “you’re a whole seven years older than me.”

Hyunwoo’s nose wrinkles, “ouch.”

“That’s not that bad.”

“Bad for what?”

Hyungwon doesn’t answer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three days later and Hyungwon just want to get so drunk he forgets his own name. He can’t stop thinking about his mom - isn’t time supposed to make things easier? Or does absence make the heart grow fonder? What’s the answer, what’s the truth. Someone needs to tell Hyungwon because he’s about to pull all his hair out wondering.

Nothing’s happening tonight. He’s already called Kihyun and Jooheon and Minhyuk and nobody's doing anything. Hyungwon can’t steal alcohol from his grandmother, either, because she’d notice. She’d notice right away.

This is how he ends up at Hyunwoo’s door at midnight.

“Hyungwon?” Hyunwoo says his name when he opens the door. Hyungwon should, but he doesn’t, wonder how Hyunwoo knows a name Hyungwon never told him.

“You said if I needed anything, right.” It’s phrased like a question but it’s not really a question. “I need something.”

“It’s past midnight.” Hyunwoo replies, casting a glance over his shoulder into his apartment. He’s probably looking at a clock. Or does he have someone over? Hyungwon suddenly wants to push the door wide open and see everything inside Hyunwoo’s apartment. Lay him bare, force him into that kind of vulnerability. What if he has someone over.

“I can come back -” Hyungwon starts. He’s being such a brat, he’s showing his age, and that’s the last thing he wants to do in front of Hyunwoo.

“No, no, it’s fine,” Hyunwoo shakes his head, then asks, “what do you need?”

Hyungwon scoffs. He feels stupid. “Honestly?” He says, “some alcohol, really, and someone to talk to.”

It feels like Hyunwoo stands, tiny crack of his front door, watching Hyungwon, for a very long time. Logically, it’s only about thirty seconds. It’s torture. Hyungwon is just about to turn on his heels and go home, when Hyunwoo opens his door wide and says, “okay.”

Says, “come in.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hyungwon’s acquired a taste for gin and Hyunwoo’s lets him have the whole half of the bottle left under his sink. Hyungwon drinks it out of a cup Hyunwoo hands him, even if he would rather just drink it straight from the bottle. He glugs back the drink without breathing until his whole mouth tastes like juniper berries and nothing else, then he pauses.

Hyunwoo sits at the opposite end of his dining room table, slouched in his seat.

“Did I wake you up?” Hyungwon asks. The gin hasn’t hit him properly yet. When it does it’s going to happen all at once.

“No,” Hyunwoo answers. Hyungwon believes him; Hyunwoo’s still wearing jeans, his socks, his hands are still a little dirty from all the work he must have done today. Hyungwon thinks: a picture of those hands, calloused, a random smattering of dirt across them, the suggestion of a pattern that isn’t there? You could hang that in a museum.

Hyungwon’s head is starting to fog. “Do you know why I’m here right now? I mean, do you know why I live with my grandmother these days?”

“She told me,” Hyunwoo replies slowly. He watches Hyungwon’s carefully when he says, “your mom died. I’m sorry.”

“So many people keep saying they’re sorry,” Hyungwon scoffs. He takes a long sip from his cup. “Funny. It doesn’t make my mom any less dead.”

Hyunwoo doesn’t say anything.

Shit, that was harsh, wasn’t it? Hyungwon didn’t mean Hyunwoo, specifically, it was just a manifestation of built up frustration. Hyungwon sighs, run his fingers through his bangs. “Sorry,” he says, “that was bleak.”

“Don’t worry.”

“I think she’s trying to save my soul.”

Hyunwoo tilts his head, “who?”

“My grandmother,” Hyungwon slides his elbows onto Hyunwoo’s table, rests his head in his hand. “I think she’s trying to save my soul. Because my mom was a sinner, I don’t know if you knew that part. My grandmother thought my mother was a sinner.”

“She’s never said that,” Hyunwoo has a voice like honey, Hyungwon thinks. Spilled over the lip of the jar, leaking slow down the side of it. “Not to me.”

“I’m sure she tells all her church friends about her disappointing, dead daughter and her disappointing grandson.”

God, Hyungwon doesn’t know why he’s saying all of this. It’s partly the alcohol, making him all loose lipped, it’s partly that if he’s not confessing all of this he’ll say something about how he wants to get his hands under Hyunwoo’s t-shirt and feel if it radiates the warmth it looks like it does. It’s also something else, something Hyungwon can’t place, something to do with Hyunwoo specifically, independently of Hyungwon’s feelings about him.

“I thought religion was about forgiveness, Hyunwoo,” Hyungwon mumbles. And then he finishes his drink.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hyungwon starts spending more time with Hyunwoo.

It becomes more than just visits at night for alcohol. Hyungwon maybe takes advantage of Hyunwoo’s unwavering hospitality and invites himself over more than he should. But Hyunwoo never says anything, and it makes Hyungwon’s grandmother happy, and Hyungwon sometimes _aches_ with how badly he wants to be near Hyunwoo.

He wants to tell Hyunwoo how badly he wants him. How at night, when his brain is too loud, Hyungwon will think of Hyunwoo’s hands on him. Mouth on him. All of Hyunwoo's attention focused on Hyungwon and Hyungwon will get so hard he feels like crying. He wants to tell Hyunwoo he’s never wanted anyone this bad. That he’d do anything for Hyunwoo to notice how bad Hyungwon wants him. He wants Hyunwoo to see him and see Hyungwon, aching and open, ready and waiting, wishing, hoping.

Instead, all they manage is small talk, and Hyungwon is left to wonder in silence how hard Hyunwoo could press his fingers into Hyungwon’s skin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I thought I had daddy issues,” Kihyun says. Jooheon’s expressions sours at the words _daddy issues_.

They’re in Minhyuk’s backyard. His parents are out of town and they’ve built a fire. Minhyuk’s passed around warm, cheap canned beer that’s been hiding under his bed for too long. They’re all shaken up and every time they open one up the bubbles spill over the lip and they end up licking at the sides of their cans like cats.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Hyungwon creases his brow. He balances his half-empty can of beer between his legs and hides his hands in the sleeves of his sweater, the night time turned the weather cooler.

Kihyun shakes his head, smirking. “This guy,” he says, “your grandmother’s neighbour, he’s how many years older than you?”

“Oh fuck off,” Hyungwon doesn’t even want to dignify this line of questioning with proper answers. “I don’t have fucking _daddy issues_. And even if I did I don’t know what Hyunwoo has to do with that.”

Hyungwon’s three friends eyebrows' all raise. Dammit.

“Hyunwoo, is it?” Minhyuk asks, mouth twisted up all smug. Jooheon is just laughing. Kihyun’s hiding his grin behind his can of beer.

Hyungwon is bright pink.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s late. Hyungwon sits out on - it’s not really a front porch, just the railed off walkway that can take you from apartment front door from apartment door on the upper level - but that’s where Hyungwon sits. He’s fit his legs through the railing bars, left to hang over the edge. The sky is inky black. There is no moon.

Hyungwon hears a door open.

“Stargazing?” It’s Hyunwoo’s voice. Hyungwon hears Hyunwoo’s door click shut behind him.

“No stars to gaze at,” Hyungwon sighs. He leans back on his elbows. Hyunwoo comes to stand beside him. This is when Hyungwon allows himself to look, to find Hyunwoo’s face angled towards the sky, searching for stars hidden by the clouds. Hyunwoo’s leg is so close to the length of Hyungwon’s arm. He can feel the heat radiate from it, and if he were to shift just a little to the left his bare arm would brush Hyunwoo’s jeans. He thinks about it, examines that space between them, for a very, very long time, while he and Hyunwoo sit quietly and watch a sky not worth looking at.

Hyungwon has to speak. He can’t sit and think about his proximity to Hyunwoo anymore.

“My friends make fun of me for your being your friend,” Hyungwon says to break the silence.

Hyunwoo turns his head down to look at him. “Because I’m so old?” Hyunwoo asks, smiling.

“You’re not old,” Hyungwon shakes his head. “And, anyway, my options for friends here were you or some geriatrics. You were the obvious choice.”

Hyunwoo laughs. “Glad I could be.”

They lull into silence. Hyunwoo shifts a little closer.

Or maybe Hyungwon imagines that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hyungwon waits for the veil to lift.

He waits to leave his grandmother’s apartment one night and find Hyunwoo letting himself and a girl into his. He waits to be refused entry to Hyunwoo’s apartment because he’s brought someone into it. He waits to be convinced that every small gesture Hyungwon overanalyzes is just that: insignificant, imagined.

Hyungwon waits to be shown some evidence that means this idea he entertains of him and Hyunwoo being anything, ever, is foolish and a waste of time. _It’s Not Going To Happen: A Love Story._

He waits, and waits, and waits, and it feels like holding his breath for days on end.

(He’s been here before: a glimmer of hope that’s turned out to be nothing. Every time Hyungwon’s been ready for more he’s been stopped at a red light and robbed blind. Hoseok. The first boy in the bathroom, who never said a word to him again and probably forgot his name. A boy in his Monday, 3PM lecture who only ended up liking girls.

The first person Hyungwon ever had sex with, the first person who fucked him. An older man in an expensive suit at a hotel bar Hyungwon snuck into. Expensive suit, expensive hotel, expensive watch, nice hair, an expensive drink he bought for Hyungwon. He had seen right through Hyungwon, hadn’t he? Saw a young kid who didn’t know what he was doing or how to be with the people he wanted to be with. A kid desperate to shed some second skin that hid something just below the surface. Told Hyungwon how hot he looked, told Hyungwon he deserved certain pleasures, pleasures this man told Hyungwon he wanted to give him.

This man, who let Hyungwon do a couple lines of coke, and then fucked him on his giant hotel bed. Fucked him awful and rough and hard, because he saw right through Hyungwon, and knew he could get away with not doing things properly. Because Hyungwon was desperate. And he knew that.

That man, who made all these empty promises, fucked Hyungwon so hard it hurt. Wore a wedding ring. Let Hyungwon cry in his hotel shower, muffled by a washcloth, for an hour before he made Hyungwon leave.

After all of that, Hyungwon thought he learnt to stop clinging to glimmers of hope in the darkness.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There’s a party at some kid’s house that night. Changkyun, is his name apparently, and his parents have left him alone for the weekend for the first time. Minhyuk shows up in his father’s car to pick Hyungwon up, as always.

Hyunwoo is replacing a broken water spout on the side of the apartment building when Hyungwon descends the stairs to meet his friends. They wave goodbye to each other.

Kihyun is already smirking when Hyungwon slides into the back seat. “You two -”

“I’m not letting you finish that sentence,” Hyungwon interrupts him. He paws at Jooheon for the bottle of booze he knows they have and have already started drinking. “Let’s go,”

The party is boring. Hyungwon's run out of exciting things to do this summer. He sits, nursing a bottle of pre-mixed vodka cranberry, and watches it happen around him. His friends are long gone. It doesn’t matter. They’ll find him again before they leave.

God, Hyungwon is so fucking lonely, isn’t he? Surrounded by all these people and he’s so _fucking_ lonely. He’s got friends, but not really. He wonders what Kihyun, Minhyuk and Jooheon tell people about him when they ask. Do they tell them about how Hyungwon’s life is so sad, so hard, so they have to bring him along for things. Because he’s a fucking charity case. No dad, a dead mom, a grandmother who loves God more than she could ever love him. A God his grandmother thinks would be ashamed of him, or at least would if she knew he was gay. But she doesn’t, because of the way she reads the Bible.

Then there’s Hyunwoo. Older than Hyungwon, his whole life figured out, and for some reason Hyungwon thinks he could fit into that life. No, no, there’s a brick wall between them. Hyungwon’s on one side and Hyunwoo’s on the other.

He finds Kihyun out of back porch, smoking. “Can I have one?” Hyungwon asks, gesturing to Kihyun’s half-finished pack of cigarettes.

Kihyun looks at him incredulously, for just a moment, before he offers Hyungwon the cigarette that he had only smoked one puff of.

“Thanks,”

Hyungwon smokes it on the back porch of this party, this boring, kid’s first house party, looking at out the expanse of this kid’s backyard and the empty sky.

He’s so fucking lonely.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hyungwon is stumbling when his friends drop him off. He’s never been this drunk in his life. People kept offering him things and he kept saying yes, didn’t want to say no, wanted to replace the gnawing in his gut with something that would make him vomit. Maybe he’d vomit up all that loneliness and it’s gnashing teeth along with it.

Hyungwon imagines his loneliness as the head of a wolf: cut off from the rest of it’s body, bleeding everywhere, and still, Hyungwon’s stomach caught between it’s teeth.

Fuck. His head is spinning. He can’t go back into his grandmother’s apartment like this. She’ll look at him and say some shit about how he’s just like his mother, his _dead_ mother, who his grandmother can’t even let rest in death, and Hyungwon might just rip her apart if he hears any of that bullshit tonight.

He stops just short of his grandmother’s front door and knocks on Hyunwoo’s instead.

Hyunwoo opens his door, half-asleep, and his hair a mess. He squints into the darkness to place Hyungwon’s face. God, Hyungwon wants Hyunwoo to kiss him. Touch him.

“Hyungwon?”

“Hi,” Hyungwon slurs. He sounds like a mess, shit. Hyungwon scrubs a hand over his face. “Hey, sorry, I’m so drunk. I can’t go home like this.”

Hyunwoo lets Hyungwon in without pressing. Of course he does.

“You went out with your friends?” Hyunwoo asks, after he’s gone to get Hyungwon a glass of water. Hyungwon doesn’t drink it, just sets it down on Hyunwoo’s coffee table.

“Do you think they’re really my friends?”

“Of course they are. What kind of question is that?”

“I don’t know,” Hyungwon’s voice sounds so pitiful, “I was just thinking.” He pauses for a moment, before he asks, “are we friends?”

“We’re friends, Hyungwon,” Hyunwoo says it with so much confidence. He doesn’t even hesitate. Hyungwon scoffs.

“Can I tell you a secret?”

  
There’s a few beats before Hyunwoo answers. “If you want.”

“If you wanted,” Hyungwon swallows. If he’s going to do this, might as well do it now. Might as well do it the worst way possible. “If you wanted, I would let us be more than friends. If you asked to kiss me I would let you. Isn’t that fucking - isn’t that _unbelievable_?”

Hyunwoo’s expression doesn’t change. He’s carved out of marble, the only signs of life the rise and fall of his chest with his breaths, the slow blinks that relieve Hyungwon of the pressure of his gaze, even just briefly. Hyungwon digs his fingers into the arms of Hyunwoo’s living room chair. He thinks he needs to throw up.

“Will you let me kiss you right now?”

Hyungwon had not been expecting that. The tension in his hands loosen. He looks at Hyunwoo - really looks at him, and finds sincerity in his expression. His mouth - his mouth looks so soft. Hyungwon doesn’t even hear himself say yes.

Hyunwoo kisses him. He has to bend over to do it, because he’s standing and Hyungwon’s still sitting, but when he does Hyungwon wraps his arms around Hyunwoo’s neck and hauls himself up so they’re both standing, hips pressed together. Hyungwon opens his mouth and Hyunwoo follows his lead, letting Hyungwon count every one of his teeth with his tongue.

Hyungwon can’t process what’s happening. Doesn’t know how. He’s in Hyunwoo’s living room, so late at night it’s early morning, and they’re _kissing_. The wolf teeth in Hyungwon’s stomach suddenly feel a little less sharp, the jaw pressing them down suddenly feels a little looser.

Hyungwon wishes he could catch this moment in a jar and keep it on his nightstand.

Because just like that it’s over. Hyunwoo pulls away from Hyungwon, all the way away, and Hyungwon feels his heart lurch. Just like that, the teeth are back to biting all the way through his stomach lining.

“What?” Hyungwon breathes. His voice wavers.

“I shouldn’t have -” Hyunwoo starts and then stops. He tries again, “Hyungwon, I, you need to understand -”

Oh god. There it is. Hyunwoo has ripped open Hyungwon’s chest, cracked every rib one by one, gone looking to scoop out his heart and maybe stomp on it. Only there was no heart - is no heart, just a pulpy mess of tissue, a heart smashed by the rock he swallowed the day before his mom died.

“It’s okay,” Hyungwon says, because he doesn’t know what else to do. “It’s okay, I’ll leave.”

He doesn’t give Hyunwoo any time to try and stop him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next morning Hyungwon’s hangover is awful and his mouth tastes like an ashtray. His grandmother makes him eat breakfast with her in the stifling heat of her dining room.

She doesn’t say anything to Hyungwon. She barely even looks at him. As if, this morning, when she kneeled over the edge of her bed to pray, God told her everything.

Whatever. Hyungwon doesn’t look at her either. He focuses on trying not throw up every time he takes a sip of orange juice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hyungwon does go to Hyunwoo’s for three days. He sits in his bedroom of the summer so far and for the rest of the summer, blinds closed, arm thrown over his eyes.

He’s missed his mother since the day she died, but this is the first time he wishes, viscerally and so hard he feels like crying, that she was still alive. All he wants is this world is to be able to talk to her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Ah, so you are alive,” Hyungwon’s grandmother tuts, on the fourth day, when Hyungwon leaves his bedroom just after noon. “Your friends called for you a few times.”

Hyungwon doesn’t answer. He walks to the fridge and pours himself a glass of lemonade.

“I want to leave.”

His grandmother doesn’t even have the decency to look shocked. She lifts an eyebrow, but it’s not out of surprise, it’s a mockery of that. “Where will you go?”

“I don’t know,” Hyungwon replies, “anywhere but here.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hyungwon goes to the pool later that day. It’s probably too cold to swim. Under the water, though, Hyungwon can’t hear anything but the muffled hum of the pool filter and maybe if he sits at the bottom for long enough he’ll just stay there.

It doesn’t work. Hyungwon’s lungs scream at him over and over to the breach the surface. He always ends up listening. He must not be brave enough. He must take after his father.

Eventually, he ends up sitting on the steps of the pool, knees pulled up his chest. He swatches a beetle float on it’s back, legs kicking as it tries to fix itself up right, keep itself alive. Hyungwon follows it from the just below surface with his hand - not touching it, but always close. He could save it, whenever he wanted, if he even wanted to at all.

“Hyungwon,” it’s Hyunwoo’s voice. Behind him. Hyungwon doesn’t turn to look.

“My mom was the best mom I could have ever wanted,” Hyungwon says, “but she lied to me all the time, you know?”

“She lied to me when she told me she loved my dad. When I left her to go to college she lied when she told me she’d be fine. She got sick a year later and then she died. She lied when she told me I could be whatever I wanted to be, you know? Because I keep wishing to be all these other things and it never works.”

“You don’t have to avoid me.”

  
The beetle stills, exhausted. Maybe accepting death. Hyungwon turns to look up at Hyunwoo. “I’m not avoiding you.”

“I was the one who asked you if I could -” Hyunwoo can’t even say it.

“I showed up at your door drunk and told you I wanted you to kiss me,” Hyungwon retorts. The words make his chest hurt. “Why do you want this to be your fault so bad?”

Hyunwoo sighs. “I’m trying to fix this.”

“You don’t have to fix anything,” Hyungwon turns back to watching the blue of the pool water. He tries to find the beetle again, maybe to save it, but he can’t spot it. “I’m leaving, anyway,”

Hyunwoo doesn’t say anything to that. At some point he must leave. Hyungwon doesn’t notice when he does. He watches the water and the way it distorts the look of his arms and legs underneath its surface.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last time Hyungwon prayed his mother was three months away from death and he had felt hopeless.

Hyungwon had tried to be so brave, a stone pillar, when he was talking care of his mother. He shouldered every weight he could for her. He would have swallowed swords, walked on broken glass, stuck his hand in an open flame - anything, he would have done _anything_ to make it easier for her.

But none of it mattered, did it? Because Hyungwon couldn’t stop the inevitable. His mother was sick and she was going to die. Nothing Hyungwon could do would stop that. And, sometimes, some days, after his mother was asleep and he was drinking coffee in the middle of the night at the dining room table, his spine would crack under that pressure.

This night Hyungwon’s coffee had long gone cold after he was done crying. It tasted like tar. The sun was breaking through the horizon and Hyungwon didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what he could fix and what he couldn’t. He was lost.

He thought of God, briefly, and misplaced anger made him mad at an entity he didn’t even really believe was there.

And then he prayed. For nothing in particular, he couldn’t form any real thought to project out into the universe, so he just asked for everything. Anything he could have.

“She’s a good woman,” he whispered into his folded hands, “please.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hyungwon’s grandmother takes him out for dinner.

Hyungwon watches her unfold her napkin and lay it in her lap, collection of bracelets clinking against each other on her wrist. “It’s nice that we can talk tonight, Hyungwon, after you’ve told me you wanted to leave,” she says, mouth slow around every word. Each word meaning something bigger than it’s basic definition. “You’ve been going out a lot.”

Hyungwon shrugs. His glass of ice water is covered in condensation. After Hyungwon takes a sip his fingers leave streaks against the glass. “I’ve been with my friends,”

His grandmother hums, “yes, but,” she holds up a finger, “you were supposed to be spending the summer with me, right? I asked you to come be with _me_. We’ve barely seen each other at all.”

“I’m not going to church with you,” Hyungwon responds immediately. He’s not even going to entertain the idea.

His grandmother clicks her tongue, “that’s now what I was going to ask, Hyungwon,” she folds her hands together on the table. She always folds her hands together, faux diplomacy laced through her body language. As if she’s ever compromised on anything. Hyungwon puts his elbows on the table just to piss her off. “I just think you should learn to take responsibility for your actions. You need to learn to live with consequences.”

“Consequences for what?” Hyungwon grits. He’s getting more and more frustrated, his grandmother can never just spell it for him can she. No, because according to her he’s on some bigger path. Something predestined for him. Something to do with God.

Hyungwon doesn’t care about God.

“That’s not the point,” his grandmother replies. No waiter has come to take their order. “Hyungwon, I’m trying -”

“I can’t believe a woman who didn’t go to her own daughters funeral is telling me to take responsibility for myself.”

Hyungwon’s grandmother goes red, from the roots of her hair to the part of her neck that disappears under his shirt collar. “She knows why I didn’t go,”

“She doesn’t know you didn’t go,” Hyungwon’s voice is pure venom, sharpened to a point and prodding, prodding, _prodding_. “She can’t know anything, she’s _dead_ ,”

His grandmother is quiet for a long, long time. “She left you money,” His grandmother seethes, finally speaking. “You know that? She left you money. But she left me in charge of it.”

“Oh?” Hyungwon deadpans. He knows exactly what is going on. His mother left his grandmother in charge of her will to try and sew the holes in a relationship that was never really held together in the first place. His grandmother is using it as blackmail.

“You’ll spend the rest of the summer here, Hyungwon,”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When they get home Hyungwon doesn’t want to be anywhere near his grandmother. If he sits in this apartment any longer he’s going to claw his eyes out.

It takes so much for Hyungwon to convince himself that he can knock on Hyunwoo’s door. It was one kiss - they kissed, once, and they had both wanted it but had both somehow decided to not reach for it. Hyungwon had been dreaming of Hyunwoo for months, his mouth and his dick and his hands, and he had all that in his grasp and he let it slip through like smoke. But Hyungwon can’t - he can’t - he needs -

Hyunwoo isn’t wearing a shirt when he opens the door. His expression, at first, is confused, but when he registers Hyungwon’s distress it shifts to concern.

“I can’t be here,” Hyungwon says. His voice hitches, caught with a fish hook, words being pulled out of his mouth even while he chokes on them. “Can we go somewhere?”

“Where?” Hyunwoo asks.

“I don’t know, I don’t care, anywhere.” Hyungwon pleads, “please?”

“Okay,” Hyunwoo fumbles for his keys on his key rack, hands them to Hyungwon. “Go start my car,” he says, “I just need to find a shirt.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hyunwoo drives them to the beach across town. The drive normally takes forty-five minutes, but Hyunwoo takes every possible detour and stops for gas, so it takes them an extra half hour. They sit in silence, listen to soft music.

Hyungwon has wanted to cry the whole ride. He presses his forehead against the cool glass of the passenger seat, watches the waves kiss the shoreline, the moon reflect itself in the water. He turns to look at Hyunwoo and finds his gaze already settled on Hyungwon in return. Hyunwoo’s fingers twitch on the gear shift.

“I thought you were leaving?” Hyunwoo asks. Hyungwon can’t be angry with him for it. Of course he wants to know. He had wanted Hyungwon, too, at least to some degree. Hyungwon was going to run away from him and whatever he was trying to do that day at the pool.

“I’m not,” Hyungwon replies, “I can’t. I don’t - I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

“Okay,” Hyunwoo says and then, softer, “are you alright?”

Hyungwon shrugs. “I don’t know,” he breathes, shaky. “I just - I couldn’t be anywhere near her right now. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Hyunwoo says, even softer. So quiet it almost gets lost in the space between their seats.

Suddenly, Hyungwon is aware of every hair’s breath of space between them. Each of them in their seats, a centre console between them. Hyungwon has his hands wrung together and stuck between his thighs, Hyunwoo has one of the wheel and one of the gear shift, even when the car is stopped. Hyungwon hates it. He wants to navigate the space, become a cartographer, claim the land on the other side of it as his own.

“Ask me if you can kiss me,” The words are so heavy when Hyungwon breathes them out. They land between him and Hyunwoo like a stack of bricks.

“What?” Hyungwon can barely hear Hyunwoo over the hammering of his heart in his chest, beat, beat, _beating_ against his ribcage. Guess it was there all along.

“Ask me if you can kiss me,” Hyungwon repeats, “and when I say yes, kiss me.”

“Can I kiss you?”

“Yes.”

If anyone looked through the windshield of Hyunwoo’s car it would look awkward; the two of them leaning over the centre console. Too far apart but desperate to get somewhere too fast. Hyungwon having no idea to do with his hands. But it doesn’t matter, Hyunwoo is so warm and sturdy and his mouth against Hyungwon’s is so good.

Too much space still, though. Hyungwon navigates his long limbs across the centre console so he can sit in Hyunwoo’s lap, thighs bracketing Hyunwoo’s thighs, chests pressed together. Hyungwon’s lower back is pressed into the steering wheel but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Hyunwoo is right here. He’s got his mouth on Hyungwon’s, he’s got his fingers around Hyungwon’s hip bones.

“Fuck,” Hyungwon manages, out of breath from kissing. He rolls his hips against Hyunwoo’s and says it again, “ _fuck._ ”

Hyungwon undoes his own button and fly on his jeans. Hyunwoo watches him. One day, Hyungwon is going to stand in front of Hyunwoo and remove every piece of clothing with purpose, slow and meticulous, until he’s naked. But they don’t have time for that right now. Right now is Hyungwon pulling down his jeans just enough, caught around his thighs. Right now is Hyungwon pulling Hyunwoo’s two fingers into his mouth, taking them as far back as he can, running his tongue along the length and width of them. Right now is Hyungwon pulling out Hyunwoo’s fingers from his mouth with a pop. Right now is Hyungwon sliding Hyunwoo’s hand into the back of his boxers. It’s Hyunwoo sliding two fingers inside of Hyungwon, it’s Hyungwon hissing into the curve of Hyunwoo’s neck and biting down. It’s the two of them kissing, hard and messy and passionate, alone, at night, in Hyunwoo’s car parked along the beach.

Hyungwon rides back on Hyunwoo’s fingers, rolling his hips forward simultaneously to push himself against Hyunwoo’s cock, still hidden in his pants. The noises are awful, the creaks of the car seat, the sound of jean against jean, their heavy breathing. God, it’s awful, it’s so awful. All of it. This is what Hyungwon’s grandmother means when she’s talking about sin.

Hyungwon comes with Hyunwoo’s two fingers in his ass and nothing else, with a strangled shout and his head thrown back. Exhausted, he drops his head against Hyunwoo’s shoulder, counting his breaths in his head.

Hyunwoo’s still hard in his jeans. Hyungwon can feel it pressed up against the thin fabric of his boxers now, with all his weight in Hyunwoo’s lap. “I can,” Hyungwon whispers, pushing his hand against the front of Hyunwoo’s jeans.

“It’s okay,” Hyunwoo replies. Hyungwon’s heart sinks. “Hey, don’t - this isn’t me rejecting you. You’re exhausted. You’ve been on the edge of crying for hours.”

He’s right. Hyungwon’s bones feel broken up and like they’re spilling warm milk, making him sluggish and sleepy. Still - he wants.

“Can I watch?” Hyungwon asks, lip caught in his teeth.

Hyunwoo lets him. He takes his dick out and God, it’s as thick as the rest of Hyunwoo, and Hyungwon watches Hyunwoo watch him, hand around his cock getting himself off. Next time, he’ll lick Hyunwoo’s fingers clean. Next time, he’ll get his mouth on that cock. Next time, he’ll get Hyunwoo inside him.

Next time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next morning, over breakfast, Hyungwon’s a grandmother avoids his eyes and parrots that same thing she’s been saying since he was a child.

“You love trouble, don’t you?” She says, “you’ve got the Devil in you. Just like your mother.”

Hyungwon pretends he doesn’t hear her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Sunday Hyungwon’s grandmother goes to church. Hyungwon goes next door to Hyunwoo’s.

They fuck in Hyunwoo’s kitchen. Hyungwon sinks to his knees - like he’s praying, isn’t that funny? Hyungwon doesn’t believe in God so if he’s going to drop to his knees for anyone, it might as well be Hyunwoo - and takes Hyunwoo’s soft dick into his mouth, coaxes it to hardness, and sucks him off so slow and meticulous like. Hyunwoo threads his hands into Hyungwon’s hair and pulls, half bent over at the stomach, breathing hard and making these choked little noises. Besides that there’s just the ugly, wet sounds of Hyungwon’s mouth around Hyunwoo’s cock.

Hyungwon loves them.

Afterwards Hyunwoo bends Hyungwon over his counter and fucks into him, pressing an open palm against his shoulder blade and curving his other hand around the jut of Hyungwon’s hip bone. It’s unbelievable. Hyungwon feels like he’s broken apart and stuck back together, over and over, like he’s being pulled and pushed at the same time, like his heart is in both his heart and his ankles.

Of all the ways Hyungwon imagined him and Hyunwoo together, the real thing can’t even compare.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“When we kissed, the first time,” Hyungwon says, carefully. “Why did you stop me?”

“Hyungwon,” Hyunwoo breathes his name out like he’s a god to be worshipped, “I spent weeks making lists, in my head, of all the reasons it wouldn’t happen. And then you just handed it to me, open arms, and my brain told me I had to be a good person and refuse it. For all those reasons I forced myself to come up with.”

Hyungwon kisses him.

“I’m glad you snapped out of it.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hyungwon doesn’t believe in God.

The closest thing he’s found to evidence that he might exist is Hyunwoo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Before me,” Hyungwon says, mouth quirked up at the corner. He’s laying in Hyunwoo’s bed, next to him, blankets pooled around their waists. Hyungwon’s hair is a mess. The whole moment reeks of sex, underlined with a tenderness that would catch a voyeur off guard. “Before me, was there any other boys?”

“What?” Hyunwoo smiles, “you don’t think there was?”

“Well, you didn’t -”

“Seem gay?”

Hyungwon shrugs. “More it just seemed like you were straight. I thought maybe I was an outlier.”

“You are. I’ve never been with anyone like you,” The group of butterflies in Hyungwon’s stomach flutter their wings and Hyungwon just has to lean forward and kiss Hyunwoo, brief and close-mouthed, before he lets Hyunwoo continue. “There was another boy, though. Just one. A long time ago.”

Hyungwon hums. “What was his name?”

“Jinyoung,” Hyunwoo replies. He’s got this distant look in his eye. He must be picturing his face, captured a certain way forever in Hyunwoo’s mind. Hyungwon wonders what the idea of Jinyoung Hyunwoo has in his head must look like. “We met in college. He was - he was a good person. We weren’t meant to work out.”

What Hyungwon is about to ask is so, so dangerous, but it slips from his lips before he can catch it. “Are we meant to work out?”

That far away look leaves Hyunwoo’s eyes. He’s just focused on Hyungwon now. “I don’t know,” he admits, “I hope so.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“You feeling better?” It’s just Hyungwon and Kihyun, sitting in Kihyun’s car, parked at the pier. They’re sharing a milkshake they bought from the ice cream place down the street. Hyungwon thinks it’s the first time they’re not drinking alcohol around each other. “You got weird on us there, after Changkyun’s party.”

“Yeah, sorry,” Hyungwon thinks about telling Kihyun about Hyunwoo. Decides not to. “Some shit went down with my grandmother. Fucked me up.”

  
“Hey man, I get it,” Kihyun replies, shrugging. “But we’re here, you know? If you need us. We’re your friends.”

“Yeah, we’re friends.” Hyungwon says slowly. Then, to himself, he says, “of course we are.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

August arrives faster than Hyungwon would have liked. The heat breaks, if only slightly, and the apartments start feeling less stifling to be in.

It also makes sex easier. Less sweatier, a lot less smelly.

Hyungwon slides one of his legs between both of Hyunwoo’s. “Have you ever been to Spain?” He asks, shattering the gentle, easy silence that they’d been laying in for the better part of half an hour.

Hyunwoo shakes his head. “I went to England, once,” he says, “but never that corner of Europe.”

“I was going to go to Spain,” Hyungwon tells him, “before my mom got sick, I was going to do a semester in Spain. Y’know, expand my horizons. Learn Spanish, meet Spaniard boys.”

Hyunwoo’s hand tightens on the curve of Hyungwon’s hip when he mentions the boys. Hyungwon allows himself to feel a little smug. “Are you still going to go?” Hyunwoo asks him, “after you go back to school?”

Then don’t really talk about what happens when Hyungwon goes back to school. Truth be told, Hyungwon hasn’t really even thought about it at all. Especially not since Hyunwoo. “I don’t know.” Hyungwon repositions, sliding his leg out from between Hyunwoo’s and throwing it over Hyunwoo’s waist, straddling the length of his hips, pushing both his hands against Hyunwoo’s pectorals so he can sit up.

“We should go to Spain,” Hyungwon says, “the two of us. It could be fun.”

Hyunwoo smiles. It’s a little bit of a sad smile. “Maybe,” he says. Hyungwon doesn’t dwell on the sadness in Hyunwoo's face, it’s not worth it. What is worth it is leaning forward, pressing his open mouth against Hyunwoo’s closed one and having it open for him, warm and at Hyungwon’s mercy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hyungwon’s wonders about God’s big plan for him, and whether there’s really one at all.

No, he doesn’t believe in God. But he wonders anyway. If there is a God and he’s put Hyungwon on this one, long path, the same direction and scenery for his whole life, did he plan for all of this to happen? Hyungwon doesn’t think so. God doesn’t want Hyungwon to be gay, to be fucking a man seven years older than him, to want that same man so badly he feels it ache throughout all his bones.

 

He’s got the devil in him after all, doesn’t he?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s raining outside. Hyungwon can hear the rain beat against Hyunwoo’s bedroom window from where he’s laid out on the bed, naked to his waist but already hard inside his jeans.

Hyunwoo’s mouth is on his chest, leaving marks he can hide underneath his shirts. They’ve never talked about how Hyungwon’s grandmother doesn’t know he’s gay, but it’s implied well enough, apparently, that Hyunwoo knows to hide things without being asked.

Hyungwon hisses when Hyunwoo bites down on the soft skin just above his nipple, arching his back, feeling Hyunwoo’s sturdy body press into him from head to toe.

Hyunwoo ends up between Hyungwon’s thighs after he gets Hyungwon's pants off, mouth wet against the soft skin of his thighs and then wet against the length of his cock. Hyungwon shoves his hand into his mouth to keep from crying out too loud. It reminds him of being alone in his bedroom, touching his own cock, dreaming of things like this. He has to look around to remind himself he’s in Hyunwoo’s room, not his own, and that really is Hyunwoo’s mouth on his cock.

When Hyunwoo makes him come Hyungwon chants his name like a prayer, like a hymn, and he doesn’t believe in God, but if he exists Hyungwon hopes He can hear him. Hyungwon can taste himself in Hyunwoo’s mouth when they kiss. It’s not dirty, like Hyungwon thinks maybe it should be. Like he would have thought some other day, a long time ago. It’s so hot and it makes Hyungwon’s whole body flush because, there he is, caught underneath the taste of Hyunwoo himself in Hyunwoo’s mouth forever.

Hyungwon gets on top of Hyunwoo, spreads his legs, lets himself be open to Hyunwoo. Hyunwoo fucks up into him slow and thorough, until he lifts himself up, half-sitting up with a hand braced behind him to keep him upright and the other circled around Hyungwon’s waist and digging into his side, and increases his pace. Fucks Hyungwon faster to make him come again. Hyungwon locks his arms around Hyunwoo’s neck and meets his pace, bites his earlobe, and loves the way his name sounds when Hyunwoo mumbles it into his neck while he comes, mouth wet and open against Hyungwon’s hammering pulse point.

By the time they’ve finished the rain has stopped. The only sound in the room is the two of them. At some point, their panting breaths synch up, and it’s like there isn’t even two of them. Just a single entity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Late at night, Hyunwoo says to Hyungwon, “you don’t have to take care of everyone.”

It comes out of nowhere. Hyungwon blinks at him, says, “what?”

“I think you don’t know how not to take care of someone,” Hyunwoo explains, “but you don’t have to. Not everyone. You had only one person really care about you your whole life, but not anymore. You can let other people care about you.”

Hyungwon is quiet for a very, very long time. Hyunwoo lets him be, watching him, smiling. Sturdy, like he always is. The stone pillar Hyungwon had tried to be for his mom.

“Okay,” Hyungwon finally says, almost crying. “Okay.”

Hyunwoo kisses him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s breakfast. Hyungwon’s going back to school soon. Hyungwon is at his grandmother’s dining room table, eating a bowl of cereal. His grandmother opened two windows before Hyungwon showed up and sat down.

“I’m gay,” Hyungwon says, pushing his empty bowl of cereal away from him. He can’t believe he says it. He feels like a tower of books he’s been balancing all summer, his whole life, has been finally lifted off his head.

His grandmother doesn’t even look up from her morning paper. She’s reading the obituaries. “I know that,” she says, “well, never for sure, but I had assumptions.”

“Is that why you always said I was just like my mother. Because we’re both sinners? Is that why I have the devil in me.”

Hyungwon’s grandmother sighs. She sets her knitting needles down in her lap so she can look Hyungwon in the eye, straightening out and sitting up right. “I loved your mother, and I love you,” she says, “I hope you always remember that.”

It feels hollow. Hyungwon wonders if his grandmother still thinks this is all apart of God’s big plan.

“Why did you even want me here?” He asks her. A question that’s been poking at the base of his skull all summer.

“I’m not going to see ever again, am I, Hyungwon?” His grandmother smiles, sad. Hyungwon almost feels bad. “That’s alright. I’m not going to live much longer. I wanted to get to know you more before you left forever. I think I deserve to know the man you’ve become.”

“You had my whole life to get to know me.”

“You’re right,” Hyungwon’s grandmother sinks back into her chair, picks up her knitting needles again. “I suppose that’s my fault.”

Hyungwon almost tells her _yes, it is_ but he thinks she already knows. He doesn’t need to tell her anything. It’s not worth it.

He doesn’t tell her about Hyunwoo. It would be satisfying to see her face if he did, but that’s not for her. Hyunwoo is just for him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A week before the new semester starts, Hyungwon sits in Hyunwoo’s apartment, and they talk.

“I’m leaving,” Hyungwon tells Hyunwoo, for the second time. It’s much sadder this time. Hyungwon had no idea he could get sadder than he did the last time he said it.

“Where are you going?” Hyunwoo asks. His tone makes it sounds like he’s not sure if he can ask, if he’s allowed.

“Back to school,” Hyungwon says, “it’s almost September.”

Hyungwon’s mother used to tell him September was such an easy month compared to August. August was a wildcard and in September you could understand who you were and what you were doing. Hyungwon is still deciding if he agrees with her or not.

“I can drive you,” Hyunwoo offers, then he says, quieter and maybe more frightened, “if you want.”

Hyungwon smiles, he says, “okay,” and then Hyunwoo smiles back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before she died, Hyungwon’s mother had said, “I just want you to be happy,” and it sounded like she was begging. “Try and be happy, Hyungwon, that’s all I could ever want for you.”

“Okay,”

“Promise me.”

“Okay, okay,” Hyungwon had breathed, “I promise.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_Whatever the mess you are, you’re mine, okay?_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> the title (and summary quotes) are from [The National song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jpz_gUyImhw) of the same name. The last lyric is from [Challengers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHWWWa8EvzI) by The New Pornographers.
> 
> it's not written yet and it wouldn't be very long, but if y'all are interested i could see myself adding a little epilogue to this. just for something extra. 
> 
> can you fucking believe i wrote a whole thirteen thousand words of this.


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